Plato's counsel on education

Philosophy

Volumn 73, Issue 284, 1998, Pages 157-178

  Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg ^a  

^a BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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Indexed keywords

EID: 65849445561     PISSN: 00318191     EISSN: 1469817X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0031819198000163     Document Type: Review

References (13)

1. Because they are, as best I can judge, irrelevant to Plato's considered views on education, I propose to ignore the contemporary discussions about the proper formulation and significance of the elenchus. Recent commentators have attempted to formulate a relatively formal rule for elenchic inquiry; they've also argued about whether positive conclusions can be drawn from elenchic discussions. See Gregory Vlastos' characterization: 'a thesis is refused when, and only when, its negation in derived from the answerer's own beliefs. Respondents must undertake to say only what [they believe] that they believe.' Gregory Vlastos, 'Elenchus and Mathematics,' American Journal of Philology, 1988, esp. fns. 14, 19, 30
2. Vlastos thinks that - at least in the Gorgias - the elenchus can reach positive ethical conclusions. ('The Socratic Elenchus,' Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 1983.)
3. Also see Richard Robinson, S. Marc Cohen and Gerasimos Santas in Gregory Vlastos, ed., The Philosophy of Socrates (New York, 1971)
4. and Terence Irwin, Plato's Moral Theory, (Oxford, 1977), pp. 63ff.)
5. Hugh Benson, 'The Problem of the Elenchus Reconsidered,' Ancient Philosophy, 1987
6. and 'The Priority of Definition and the Socratic Elenchos,' Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 1990
7. See 'Character, Mind and Politics: The Socratic Case,' in Psychoanalysis, Mind and Art Jim Hopkins and Anthony Savile (eds) (Blackwell, 1992)
8. Students in an advanced seminar on Greek philosophy (given in the People's Republic of China in 1981 and in the United States in 1996) were asked to participate in a mock-trial of Socrates, using only the early dialogues as evidence in the prosecution and defense. Since the Chinese judicial system was, in 1981, dramatically different from that of Athens or the States, it was difficult to get the students to carry out the assignment. But when they did manage it, their votes replicated those of the Athenian tribunal: they held Socrates guilty by a close margin of a thread-bare majority. The American undergraduates were asked to make two judgments, first assuming themselves to be Athenians, and secondly in their own persons. As Athenians, they condemned Socrates by a slender majority; as Americans, they exonerated him by a strong majority
9. You can't look for what you don't know and don't need to look for what you know.' I believe that Diotima's speech (201E-204C). Diotima posits a daimon - an intermediatry between the divine and the human, between knowledge and ignorance - that combines contraries and that strives for what is noble and beautiful. See C. D. Reeve, Philosopher-Kings (Princeton, 1988)
10. Alexander Nehamas, 'Socrates as a Teacher,' Essays in the Philosophy of Socrates Hugh Benson (ed.) (Oxford, 1992)
11. See I. F. Stone, The Trial of Socrates, Boston, 1988
12. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Harvard, 1971), p. 49
13. See Myles Burnyeat, 'Plato as a 19th Century Educator,' in Amélie Rorty Philosophers on Education: Historical Perspectives (Routledge, 1998)